Bruce Western is a sociology professor, the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Professor of Criminal Justice Policy, and faculty chair of the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management at Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Western served as vice chair of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Causes and Consequences of High Incarceration Rates in the United States, and he is the principal investigator on the Harvard Executive Session on Community Corrections and the Boston Reentry Study. He is the author of the award-winning book, Punishment and Inequality in America.